Dig Two Graves: Revenge or Honor (28 page)

“No, I haven’t. It’s one of several very strange pieces to this puzzle,” Ceres said.

AJ looked at Gia with a newfound respect. “That’s brilliant,” AJ said.

“Maybe, but we have no way to prove it,” Ceres said. “Can we?”

“No, well, yes, maybe there is something we can do with the information to break things open. It’s sort of crazy and it’s risky.”

“What do you have in mind?” AJ said.

“Well, this ship sank near the town of Katerini. We could go to Katerini, hire a dive boat …”

“But I don’t dive,” AJ said.

“Neither do I, but if we go there, maybe the thugs will too.”

“How do we get them to follow us there?” Ceres said.

“Oh no, not you, my Greek friend,” AJ said. “The doctor said another ten days at this resort for you.”

Ceres protested and AJ shouted until Gia whistled to stop the two men’s bickering. “AJ is right about this Ceres. It’s a two-person job. Besides, you have to hold onto the notebook and keep it out of the wrong hands.”

“All right, I’ll stay, but I don’t like it.”

“Ceres has a good question though,” AJ said. “How do we get them to follow us?”

“That’s the easy part. We drop a hint to a certain local police chief and word will get back to the right, I mean, the wrong people. If this works we’ll catch the hit men by surprise and maybe get some phone records to trace back to the source,” Gia said.

“Ajax is right, you are brilliant,” Ceres said.

“When did you find out the source of the leak?” AJ asked.

“When I spoke to my uncle last night we … we reached the conclusion it was the local police chief. It’s embarrassing for Alessandro. The man’s an old friend, but it’s pretty clear he’s the source,” Gia said, feeling her uncle’s discomfort at the knowledge he’d been betrayed by a friend.

“Now all we have to do is figure out the damn code,” AJ said.

“Hello, dears, you know you really must not excite the patient,” Nurse Mary said as she bustled through the door. “His face is as red as a beet.”

AJ said, “We’re sorry, we were just….”

“Playing at ciphers now are we? That’s my line of country, you know. I love a puzzle or a good cipher.”

“We were just talking, Mary,” Ceres said.

“Yes, you were, deary, and talking too loudly for your own good, I’m afraid. No harm done,” the rosy cheeked nurse said. “You can count on Mary. There weren’t no one but me in the hall just now.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know what you three are up to, but you seem nice sorts. Let me help you.”

AJ said, “Mary that’s kind of you but…”

“You see, ciphers are my hobby. Me mum, well, she worked her whole life for the Foreign Office, but on her deathbed, she told me about it, she did. It was really MI 5, the Security Service, she done all them years o’ work for. And her mum, well she,” Mary lowered her voice to just above a whisper, “she got a secret MBE for working at Bletchley Park during the war. Never heard a word about it from neither of them, can you believe it? So you see secrets and ciphers is in my blood.”

“Mary, I don’t…”

“I’ve always loved a puzzle,” the nurse interrupted. “I studied mathematics and cryptography at Cambridge. I’m the past president of the Leicestershire Amateur Cryptographers as well as the Cambridge Mathematics Society. I’ve won seven honorable mentions in the annual national Sudoku competition. I could go on,” she said. “When I found myself just sitting in a solitary room all day, it didn’t appeal. I need to be around people so I switched to nursing. ‘Course, I can’t tell you who I worked for, the State Secret Act, you know.”

Mary stood defiantly in front of three stunned people. They needed a codes expert and here was one, of a sort, right under their noses. Gia looked at Ceres, who gave an imperceptible nod. AJ, seeing this, slowly shook his head in disbelief.

“Mary we don’t know what type of code it is or how to figure out the key,” Gia said.

“You don’t figure out ciphers, you use trial and error. If solution number ten doesn’t do, you go on to number eleven. When was it written? 

“During the war,” AJ said, warming to the idea of Mary’s help.

“Which one deary, there’ve been quite a few,” Mary said tersely but with a broad smile.

“The Second World War, about 1944,” Ceres said.

“You would have been just a young lad then,” Mary said. “British or American, Army or Navy?”

“American Army in the Balkans,” Ceres replied.

“You said 1944. That would be Greece or Yugoslavia then. I know my history, you see, even the secret history. Did the chap that wrote it use ciphers regularly?”

AJ and Gia both turned to Ceres who looked up at the ceiling trying to dredge up long forgotten scenes from the hillside camp. After a few moments he said, “I don’t think so. He had a radio operator who decoded for him.”

“But he had a code book?” Mary asked, getting more excited.

“I’m sure he did,” Ceres said.

“Did he have a good deal of time to encipher the message?”

“I don’t know,” Ceres said.

“What does it look like? Are there letters or numbers? Are there any spaces?”

“It’s three rows of letters, two and a half, really with a space between each letter.”

“Are there any letters repeated?”

“Is that important? I don’t remember if there’re any repeated letters.”

“It could be. Repeated letters sometimes give a hint to the type of cipher,” Mary said. “May I see it, deary?”

“I’m not sure I should let you get involved in this Mary. It’s dangerous,” Ceres said.

“What’s life without a little danger or excitement, Mr. Savas? It’s deadly dull here, don’t you know.”

“I’ve kept this to myself for many years, Mary. I’ve shared it with these two people this morning. Forgive me if I hesitate a little longer to trust you with it, too.”

“As you like deary, now let’s get your vital signs since you’ve calmed down a bit,” Mary said, grabbing the blood pressure cuff from the hook on the wall above the bed and wrapping it roughly around Ceres’ arm.

“Now, you two best keep the ruckus down. You’re disturbing my patient,” Mary said as she pumped the gauge’s bulb. She put her stethoscope in her ears and listened intently as she slowly let the air pressure out. “Your pressure is up, Mr. Savas. You behave or you will lose your visiting privileges. I’m not going to lose a patient because of unruly visitors,” Mary said, staring daggers at AJ. “Now keep it down in here.”

The portly nurse flounced out of the room.

“Now I feel bad,” AJ said. “She was just trying to be helpful.”

“Oh, I did that badly,” Ceres said. “AJ would you copy down the code for me. When she comes back, I will apologize and give her a copy of it. She can’t do any worse than I have all these years.”

“Sure. May I have the notebook?”

Ceres handed the book to AJ who copied the coded message.

H Q T S R B S V H S G P T G S N E V U E X I F N P K T F F E E P Q W F Z O Y N J M G A Q M V J S J R

“Do you want me to copy anything else for her?” AJ asked.

“No, just the message will be fine. Thank you. Now Gia, about your plan…”

Anton Petru sipped cappuccino at Café Alto on Corso Garibaldi. He took great pleasure in his anonymity as he watched the chic women stroll past his sidewalk table. Petru took another sip, secure in the knowledge his changed appearance made him invisible to the police.

An expensive light brown wig, styled in the latest designer cut, covered his normally close-cropped black hair. Large aviator sunglasses flared at their outer edge made his round face appear longer and thinner. While no camouflage could hide his muscular physique, he had done his best to look smaller by choosing a light color linen sport coat a size larger than normal. The loose fitting outer garment, coupled with loose khaki slacks and a pastel shirt completed his disguise. Petru enjoyed the challenge of being a chameleon, but his work with Dobos had changed his normal methods and he resented it. He resented the older man’s orders and control of their operations. Now he resented exposing himself unnecessarily.

Petru was sitting at the café in response to the old man’s text message. It was the first he had ever received from his older partner. He was tired of Dobos and of waiting for him.

Another sip of cappuccino did little to sooth Petru’s frustration. As he was about to leave, he caught the eye of a stunning blond slowly swaying toward him. He smiled and surprisingly, she smiled back. Well, the outing may not be a total loss, he thought. Petru, with a small hand gesture, offered the woman, who still held his gaze, the empty chair at his table.

Clearly a model or a trophy wife
, Petru thought. The exaggerated walk, the flowing dress direct from some designer’s window, and the long, elegantly coiffed blond hair gave her away. As she got closer, she turned her head in the odd manner women do when they try not to show interest. She walked directly toward Petru. Her smile grew until her dazzling white teeth showed.

She stopped in front of Petru, who stood and extended his hand. He was about to introduce himself when she firmly grasped the top of his right hand with her left. She pulled him close and whispered in his ear, “You’re fired.”

She squeezed the trigger on the suppressed Sig Sauer Mosquito three times. Three .22 long rifle slugs slammed into Petru’s heart from less than eighteen inches away. He was dead before the woman lightly lowered him by his right hand back into his seat. The three pops attracted no attention from the others in the café, nor did the blond as she walked away.

“Katerini! You want to tell these killers where you’re going? Are you out of your mind?” Alessandro Moretti, Guardia di Finanza, Deputy Director shouted into the phone.

“Uncle Alessandro, it’s the only way to draw these men out. AJ and Ceres are never going to be safe until we solve this. If my idea works we’ll be able interrogate the men, track their phone calls and maybe even their money transfers. We could find out who’s behind this whole thing.” Gia responded.

“I know all that, I just don’t want you doing it,” Alessandro said.

“It’s my case, and my clients want to avoid official involvement,” Gia replied.

“I just keep remembering burying your mother and then your father. I don’t want to do that again.”

“I understand and I appreciate your concern. The difference with this situation is I know they’re coming.”

“Will you at least let me come with you?” Alessandro said. “You’re going up against professional assassins and your clients aren’t exactly Special Forces.”

“No, we have to do this alone. You can help, though. Can you can put a guard on Mr. Savas at the hospital?”

“Consider it already done, bella. Anything else I can do?”

“Two things. I need you to call your friend Commander Verde and let him know I have gone to Katerini with both my clients to search the wreck of the Agamemnon.”

“Done. And I have Verde’s phone tapped. The Public Prosecutor was all ears when I suggested the Commander of Police might be dirty. He hates Verde and hates corruption even more. And the other thing?”

“I need to borrow one of the unmarked GdF Gulfstream jets.”

“You want me to give you a government airplane? You’ve lost your mind,” Alessandro said.

“Remember, you’ve kept me on at Guardia di Finanza as a consultant. I need to consult in Greece, and the Gulfstream G550 is the fastest way to get there.”

“You know I can’t authorize that. The only way you get the plane is if you take me as copilot. If I fly it, they can only reprimand me.”

“OK, OK, you win. I’ll have to check with my clients, but under the circumstances, I think they’ll agree,” Gia said, relieved she would have some back up she could rely on. “I’d be glad to have you along.”

“Gia, I need to take another call. Can you hold on or do you want me to call you back?” Alessandro said.

“I can wait,” Gia replied.

“OK, hold on…” Alessandro said.

Gia waited a few moments, then clacked away at her computer, looking at a couple emails, and then clicked on CNN Europe. She bookmarked an article on the Greek debt crisis to come back to later. Growing impatient, she did an Internet search on scuba diving in Katerini, Greece. She looked at four sites, bookmarking three of them. She was about to launch a second search when Alessandro came back on the phone.

“Gia, you still there?”

“Yes.”

“Sorry to be so long, that was Verde calling.”

“Does he suspect something already?”

“No, no problems. The Polizia Provinciale responded to a shooting on Corso Garibaldi this afternoon. A man was shot in the chest while sitting in front of a café.”

“That’s terrible, unusual for that area. Bad for the tourists I’m sure, but why did he call you?”

“The man was wearing a wig and had multiple IDs on him, but the responding officers are sure the man is Anton Petru.”

“Damn! They’re already cleaning up loose ends. We’ve no time to lose. How soon can you leave?” Gia said.

AJ watched the terminal flash by as the G550 sailed down the runway then lifted off from Milan’s Malpensa Airport. The twin Roll-Royce engines pushed AJ into his seat on the climb out and after just a few minutes he felt the nimble plane level off.

“AJ, come on up when you’re comfortable,” Gia said, over the intercom. AJ was used to flying, but always commercial and usually First Class. The private jet’s luxury was beyond anything he had experienced and beat even the best airline’s First Class section hands down.

His boss, Luis Echeverria, needed one of these, AJ thought. The cabin was nearly as long as a tennis court and more than three times as wide as the span of his out-stretched arms. Beryl wood in lush, dark hues covered every exposed surface. The front cabin held eight plush seats covered in light grey leather. Each one swiveled to allow face-to-face conversation and had its own telephone and data port in the armrest. A conference table for eight and four large video monitors filled the rear of the cabin. AJ felt the suppleness of the soft leather, touching each seat, as he made his way to the flight deck.

“That was an impressive take off, very smooth and fast, Alessandro,” AJ said to the man in the pilot’s seat.

“Thank you. I haven’t flown this plane in some time, but it’s always a pleasure,” Alessandro replied, not taking his eyes off the array of gauges, electronic panels and dials in front of him. “We seized this one from a Sardinian Mafioso for  money laundering and tax evasion. We get many of our aircraft by seizing property from criminals. This plane is very well appointed.”

“You can say that again,” AJ said. “I was checking out the accommodations. Air Force One doesn’t have much over this plane.”

“This one is the director’s favorite. We use her for executive travel and sometimes for stings,” Alessandro said. “There is the newer Gulfstream G650 but this one is top notch. This plane has a few years on her but she’s the newest one in our fleet. She’s very fast.”

“It’s a nice ride. How fast will it go?”

“This plane’s rated for MACH 0.88, but we’ll cruise below that to go easy on fuel.”

“How fast are we going?” AJ asked.

Alessandro replied by pointing to an electronic read out on the control panel that read 589.00 MPH. 

“Whoa. How long to Athens?” AJ asked.

“We’re going to Thessaloniki. It’s closer to Katerini, by 100 kilometers” Alessandro replied. “Flight time to Thessaloniki is two hours fifty-five minutes, but we have a favorable wind. We should be on the ground in just over two hours,” Gia replied, pointing to a GPS-like screen on the control panel showing their position.

“AJ, there is something I didn’t tell you before we took off,” Alessandro said.

“Yes, what is it?”

“I’m the Deputy Director of Guardia di Finanza.”

“Yes, I know that, and I appreciate the help you’ve given me,” AJ said, waiting for the pay off.

“I have responsibilities, political responsibilities. I’m sticking my neck way out getting involved in this but because of Gia…”

“… and because you may get Solaris, you’ve agreed to help,” AJ interrupted.

“I’m afraid it’s more than that,” Alessandro said.

“What have you done?” Gia said, turning in her copilot’s seat to face Alessandro.

“I contacted the Greek Counter Terrorism Unit. They’ll meet us at the airport to give us support.”

“Damn it! Gia, I told you I didn’t want government involvement!” AJ shouted.

Before Gia could answer, Alessandro said, “Don’t blame her. I did it without her knowledge. I knew your feelings, but I had to do it. As an official of the Italian government I…”

“Forget it. The cat’s out of the bag. I knew I shouldn’t have trusted you from the first, but now I’m stuck with you. I guess that’s how you got the director’s favorite plane.” AJ said, as he turned in disgust to return to his seat.

When he had gone, Alessandro turned to Gia, “Go talk to him. We need his cooperation to pull this operation off.”

“Oh, so now it’s an operation? I thought it was my uncle helping me out.”

“Gia, please, this is Solaris, the only man left on the GdF hit list. When I spoke to the director about the plane and told him it involved Solaris, he didn’t ask any questions,” Alessandro said. “Your father…

“Don’t bring my father into this. This is about you and your vendetta.”

A frazzled Mary Burnsnell hurried into Ceres’ room and as usual was already in the midst of a conversation. Ceres hardly recognized her without her nurse’s uniform, but the constant barrage of conversation readily identified Nurse Mary.

“… then when I did find a place to park, it was as far from the entrance as it could be and with the rain and my umbrella already turned inside out, well you can just imagine, I was soaked. I’ve never seen a library so busy on a weekday,” she said. “How are you today Mr. Savas? I see you’ve had your IV removed.”

“I feel quite fit, thank you. They’ve allowed me to walk up and down the hall this morning AND take a shower. It’s surprising what a treat ordinary things can be when you haven’t been able to do them,” Ceres replied.

“Ah, well. A good wash fixes many an ill. You look much better today, good color in your face. Now, don’t overdo the walking.”

“I thought it was your day off?” Ceres said with a smile. “That’s right it is your day off. What are you doing here?”

“I was working on that little project for you,” Mary said dropping her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “It’s a tough nut to crack.”

“If it’s too much…”

“No. It’s not that. It’s a great challenge. I’m positively energized,” Mary said. “I had some more questions for you. You see, I’ve tried all the standard solutions, single and double letter substitutions, and transposition both forward and backward. Then I went to some more advanced ciphers like the Greek Square, the Rosicrucian, the Pig Pen, the Caesar’s Cipher, the Saint Cyr Slide, but none of them worked. Then I wondered, could the message be in something other the English. I tried all the solutions again looking for Greek words because that’s where you said the person who encoded the message was at the time, but still no luck.”

“You’ve done much more work on this than I expected, Mary. Thank you.”

“Oh, posh,” Mary replied, waving a pudgy hand at Ceres. “Don’t thank me, I haven’t puzzled it out. Yet.”

“What else is there to try?” Ceres asked,

“There’s quite a bit actually. You see, it has to be a substitution cipher that’s either polyalphabetic or has a randomized substitution shift.”

“If you say so,” Ceres replied, not sure what Mary had said. Ceres was very impressed with Mary’s apparent knowledge. The woman seemed so scatter brained.

Mary pulled a yellow legal pad from her canvas bag and said, “May I sit down? I’m not used to sitting in a patient’s room.”

“Certainly, how silly of me to not offer you a chair. Please, sit,” Ceres, said apologetically.

“What sort of document was this cipher originally? Was it a single sheet of paper or was it part of a longer document?” Mary asked.

“It was on the final page of a diary,” Ceres said, without hesitation.

“Is there any hint in the diary about a key, perhaps some random numbers or references to an address? Since it must be a substitution cipher the key would be something to do with a number,” Mary said.

“I can’t think of anything. Would it help you to look at the journal?” Ceres said.

“It could. Be a dear and let me take a peek,” Mary replied.

Ceres reached for the nightstand drawer and couldn’t quite find the drawer handle.

“May I help, Mr. Savas?” Mary said as she stood and leaned toward the nightstand.

“It’s a black notebook. It’s the only thing in the drawer.”

Mary took the notebook out of the drawer and handed it to Ceres who waved her hand away and said. “No, please take a look.”

“Where is the cipher?”

“It’s two pages from the last full page with an entry,” Ceres replied.

Mary turned to the cipher and checked her copy against the letters in the notebook.

“Well at least I wasn’t working with a bad copy,” she said as she regained her chair. “Who wrote this? The handwriting is very precise.”

“His name was John Pantheras, a lieutenant in the United States Army. The man was a good friend to a scared little boy,” Ceres replied.

“This note at the end of the diary, it seems hurriedly written compared to the other entries,” Mary said. She smiled as she looked at the note. “He wrote this note to you, didn’t he, dear? He must have cared about you, a hastily scribbled note to a boy he loved.”

“I have cherished that book since he gave it to me in 1944. Not a day goes by I don’t look at it, or think about him and what he sacrificed for me and for Greece. I want him to be recognized for what he did and my time is …”

“I understand. You poor dear,” Mary said. She read the note.

Ceres, Please forgive me for sending you away. You have been like a son to me. I had to know you would be safe. I hope you live a long happy life. GOD bless you. Remember to light a candle for me on my birthday. Lt. John

“I lost my faith over the years, I suppose because even prayer couldn’t answer my questions about what happened to him, but I have gone to a Greek Orthodox Church every year and lit a candle and prayed for John Pantheras,” Ceres said softly. Tears welled up in his eyes as he remembered the kindness and friendship he had known with John.

“If you did that all these years, you were a very faithful friend Mr. Savas,” Mary said quietly. “What was the lieutenant’s birthday?”